WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES AUGUST 3, 2017 21
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
Photo courtesy of the Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society
Take a drive down historic Woodhaven Boulevard
PRESENTED BY THE WOODHAVEN
CULTURAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Woodhaven Boulevard dates
back to the Colonial Era,
when parts of it was known
as Flushing Avenue and other parts
referred to on maps as “the road to the
landing” or “the road to the bay.”
Around the start of the 20th century,
Woodhaven Avenue (as it was now
known) was a sleepy tree-lined dirt road
that catered to horses and carriages. But
with automobiles becoming a more common
method of transport, people began
to travel more and Woodhaven Avenue
began to see a lot of traffi c, particularly
in the summer months when people
began to fl ock to the Rockaways.
It is in the early 1920s that the
city makes a strong push to widen
Woodhaven Avenue. The Homestead
Civic Association protested, citing the
number of new homes that would need
to be torn down. More important to the
residents was the matter of who was
going to pay for all of this.
At that time, the cost for major projects
was directly assessed on property owners
and depending on the project, it could be
quite costly. Newspaper editorials of that
era scolded the city for what was termed
“confiscatory assessments,” projects where
the cost was assessed locally, and the burden
put on the local homeowner. In many
cases, people lost their homes because
they could not pay for the local streets
and sewers that the city built.
The city was proposing that the bulk
of the project to widen Woodhaven
Avenue be assessed locally, paid for by
the homeowners in Woodhaven.
“I live within a hundred feet of
Woodhaven Avenue and I say right
now it will be of no benefi t to me,” one
homeowner said at a public hearing.
“Those who will derive the benefi t will
be the residents of Manhattan and the
Bronx, not the people of Woodhaven.”
And so, the initial push to widen
Woodhaven Avenue failed, but the
battle lines were drawn and the fi ght
would resurface on and off again for
most of the next two decades.
In 1935, the city proposed creation
of the Woodhaven Expressway, an
elevated highway which would travel
high over the homes of Woodhaven.
The planned highway would elevate
at Woodhaven, right before Myrtle
Avenue, and return to ground level
where Woodhaven runs into Cross Bay
Boulevard, just past Liberty Avenue.
Residents were aghast at the prospects
of a giant bridge hanging over
the community and suddenly the
plan to widen Woodhaven Boulevard,
as it was now commonly referred to,
looked pretty good. A few more years
of controversy ensued, and several
lawsuits were threatened, but by 1938
the city announced plans to widen the
boulevard.
Eventually, the assessment for
the project (the cost of which had
ballooned in the 2 decades since it
was fi rst proposed) was distributed
widely, with the City of New York
picking up 75% of the cost, and the
Borough of Queens picking up the
remaining 25%. By distributing
the costs this way, the residents of
Woodhaven avoided picking up the
lion’s share of the cost of a project
that largely benefi ted others.
The final cost for widening the
boulevard through Woodhaven was
around $3 million, with most of that
budget covering the cost of acquiring
the properties marked for destruction.
Many houses needed to be torn
down to make way for the new lanes
and several well-known structures,
including Emanuel Evangelical and
Reformed Church and the American
Legion, were torn down and rebuilt
elsewhere.
That fi ght over Woodhaven Boulevard
may long be over, but a battle
continues to this day over what to do
with the amount of traffi c traveling
along it each way. And 70 years from
now, regardless of the outcome of the
current debate, it is very likely that
residents will be fi ghting it out all
over again.
As they say, the more things change,
the more they stay the same.